Research Paper on Global Desertification: Do Humans Cause Deserts?

Introduction

Regions that receive less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of rain every year are called deserts. Deserts are dry with little vegetation. Landforms tend to have rakish highlights because of the absence of rain, which results in negligible compound weathering, and glimmer surges make steep walled scarps and ravines. There are few plants to shield the dirt from the wind, so the soil is overwhelmed to uncover the rough surface. Indeed, even in such a dry atmosphere, the more significant part of the landforms are cut by the odd times of overwhelming precipitation that outcome in streak surges, disintegration, and residue statement.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Hot air ascends at the equator, where the land gets the best measure of the sun's radiation. The more significant part of the world's deserts is situated close to 30 degrees north scope, and 30 degrees south reach, where the warmed tropical air starts to slide. The plunging air is thick and begins to warm once more, taking up a lot of water from the land surface. The subsequent atmosphere is arid.

Different deserts are situated in the rain shadows of mountain ranges. As wet air ignores a mountain go, it extends and cools, hastening a significant portion of its dampness as it rises. As it clears down the opposite side of the mountain run, it warms and packs, causing high temperature rates and shedding little rain. A considerable lot of the deserts in the southwestern United States are the aftereffect of rain shadows.

A couple of deserts, for example, the Gobi Desert in China, are just a consequence of being situated a long way from the sea, from which most environmental dampness is drawn. The humidity is exhausted before it can reach these inside regions.

Deserts can frame even on tropical coasts close to chilly sea currents, for example, the west shoreline of South America. The streams cool the air, which at that point rises and warms as it moves over land, drawing up dampness that is later hastened as the air moves more remote inland.

Comparison of Wind and Water as Agents of Soil Erosion and Deposition

Wind and water both transport soil from one area to another, through different processes. It is, however, most notable that wind erosion and deposition takes place in arid and semi-arid regions which receive insufficient rainfall to support vegetation, while water erosion and sedimentation are dominant in the hilly areas and plains that receive high precipitation (Nagle n.d). With water erosion, soil particles are deposited in river mouths for example deltas and along the river canals while through wind erosion, soil particles are collected at the different destination through a process known as dust transportation.

Desertification and its Relation to Human Activity

Desertification is a form of land degradation in which a once productive land becomes increasingly arid through various processes such as deforestation, unsustainable agriculture and drought, thereby in the process losing its water bodies, its vegetation as well as wildlife. Unsustainable land uses by human beings place enormous pressure on the ground by altering its soil chemistry and hydrology, and are mostly to blame for this phenomena (Reynolds et.al., 2002). Some of these activities include:

• Diversion of rivers
• Overgrazing.
• Forest fires.
• Unsustainable agriculture for example excess irrigation and farming.
• Settlement.

References

Nagle, F. (n.d.). What Is Erosion? (eBook). New York: Gareth Stevens Digital.

Reynolds, J. F., & Dahlem Workshop (88, 2001, Dahlem, Berlin). (2002). Global desertification: Do humans cause deserts? ; [report of the 88th Dahlem Workshop on Global Desertification: Do Humans Cause Deserts? Berlin, June 10-15, 2001. Berlin: Dahlem Univ. Press.